


"we have what we have when we have it"

by novoaa1



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov-centric, Natasha's past, POV Natasha Romanov, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Red Room (Marvel), and they're all ready to kill the guy who hurt natasha cause he's a dick, before civil war i guess?, but also wandas hair is auburn and natasha's is platinum blonde, but she doesn't understand why they're mad cause she doesn't do feelings, cause tonys there with steve and they're doing missions together, idk - Freeform, its like., they go on a mission, they're in spain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 19:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18923263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: Natasha goes on a mission (Fury's orders) with Tony, Steve, Clint, Wanda, and Sam.The mark is an ex-handler of Natasha's from the Red Room.He's not exactly a pleasant guy (obviously); as a result, some unfortunate parts of Natasha's past are revealed.





	1. the anomaly of sentimentality

**Author's Note:**

> another random idea i had... 
> 
> also, read the tags please!!! this deals with childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, etc. from natasha's time growing up in the red room. 
> 
> if you think that might trigger you in any way, please x-out of the tab!

It was fairly straightforward, as international missions went (and the team had been running them long enough to have discerned a relatively workable system by now): Natasha would go in under a predetermined alias to meet with the target, Yevgeny Kuznetsov—ex-Red-Room-handler, and additionally, a high-ranking official in the Russian government… or, at least, used to be. He stepped down ‘amicably' from his position in the Council of Ministers just months before the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., and had since then gone underground attempting to keep more or less off the radars of the various international intelligence agencies in search of him… which, of course, he’d succeeded in doing—at least, to a certain degree.

 

He’s good, but Natasha is better. (And, she supposes, the use of Stark’s high-tech toys and his abnormally large intellect didn’t exactly hurt, either.)

 

They’ve gathered that he’s currently in Galicia, Spain (a small autonomous community in the upper northwest portion of the country), where he's been staying for the past two and a half months—just yesterday she’d solidified plans to meet with Kuznetsov, working her cover as a representative for an independent privately-funded France-based organization wanting to secure Red Room policy and trade secrets in exchange for a handsome sum of cash, the ultimate goal being to recreate a distantly related offshoot of the Red Room program since it’d burned down (Natasha’s doing) in the late 1960's.

 

Of course, Natasha would be made from the moment he glimpsed her face, but that was rather inconsequential, as complications go—no, Natasha knew Kuznetsov well from her time in the Red Room (though admittedly there remained a great deal she couldn’t remember); she knew he was far too arrogant to run from her, from the ballerina he called Natalia, from the weapon he’d meticulously helped create through years upon years of endless training.

 

He’d be wary (not nearly wary enough), but he’d stay—that was all that mattered.

 

And besides, this was not an assassination.

 

(No, poor Steve positively _balked_ at the idea of killing someone in cold blood on even his grumpier of days.

 

And either way, Kuznetsov wasn’t to be considered a threat—well, not yet, at least.)

 

No, they would be vetting him as a potential ally—by order of S.H.I.E.L.D. (whatever was left of it).

 

Clint had just about imploded with rage when they’d received the preliminary details of the assignment straight from Fury even while Natasha hadn’t batted an eye; she hadn’t told her partner everything about the Red Room, but regardless, he knew enough to be familiar with the heavy-handed role Kuznetsov had played in Natasha’s training. 

 

(Clint always scoffed when she called it ‘training,’ asserting that that was far too kind a word for the “inhumane fucked-up-ness" of it all. 

 

Personally, she didn’t really have an opinion either way.)

 

Natasha had stopped him with a single look from marching up to the roof to contact Fury to "give him a piece of my goddamned mind"—she knew it wouldn’t be worth it. 

 

(And truthfully, she’d been made to run far more unsavory ops, the likes of which would probably be more than enough to give Clint nightmares for a week—this was 'small potatoes,’ as Americans were so fond of saying.)

 

So, they’d met Tony, Steve, Wanda, and Sam at the Quinjet for briefing and subsequent take-off (no matter that Natasha had pointed out bringing so many field agents for this particular mission was entirely unnecessary; Fury had insisted)—by Natasha’s estimates, they’d be landing in Galicia at some point within the next 10 hours, give or take an hour.

 

She kept her expression neutral as they discussed Kuznetsov and the plan—she revealed, of course, that she’d known Kuznetsov from her time in the Red Room, but as far as she was concerned, the rest of it (i.e. just how well acquainted she’d been with her ex-handler) was her business, not to mention entirely irrelevant to the op.

 

Next, they hashed out the details of the plan: Tony would be in the air (well-hidden by the newest cloaking capability he’d installed in his suit) and remotely-controlling the similarly cloaked Quinjet with assistance from FRIDAY, Clint would be perched in the 34th floor window of the opposite building (Natasha and Kuznetsov had agreed to meet at a local café), while the rest (Wanda, Steve, Sam) would be on the ground in civilian clothes at various locations within a twenty-yard radius of the meet. 

 

Straightforward, by all accounts. Simple. 

 

(It wasn't.)

 

— —

 

Idly, Natasha spared a glance at the elegant watch on her wrist—14:59. 

 

They’d agreed to meet at 15:00 in their correspondence—she’d arrived on time to avoid suspicion (if Kuznetsov showed to an empty table, he would most certainly abort); after tapping her comm to disable it (she knew the conversation, once her previous trainer showed, would quickly take an unpleasant turn—the kind that her teammates most definitely didn’t need to hear), Natasha slid smoothly into her seat. 

 

It was a nice place, she knew, having canvassed it just yesterday with Steve—pleasant chatter being exchanged over steaming mugs of coffee, rays of golden sunlight filtering generously through the floor-to-ceiling windows (affording Clint a clean shot at Kuznetsov if things got messy), and delicate circular tables inside with two or three seats at each.

 

(She’d chosen a table in the corner of the shop, where the vertical glass windows met the tiled wall behind her at a 90° angle—exposed, but comfortably so.)

 

Overall, the café was very clearly not the best place to walk into a potential trap (civilian casualties would be incredibly difficult to avoid once guns were drawn), but it was the best that could be done given their limited time frame—spooking Kuznetsov wasn’t an option. 

 

(He’d cultivated close connections with the scientists in the Red Room program, and countless other higher-ups who pulled their strings—so despite Kuznetsov himself not owning one particular skill or brand of knowledge that held any value in the realm of international intelligence work, it was his connections that ensured he remained a relevant asset.

 

And considering Natasha had crossed off nearly all other high-ranking Red Room personnel in her late 1960’s purge, Kuznetsov was one of precious few that knew the things he did—relevant asset, indeed.)

 

Crossing her legs one over the other, she gazed casually out the window, glossing easily over the faint reflection of her altered appearance in the glass—a blonde shoulder-length wig (ironic since she’d just cut short and dyed her hair platinum-blonde a couple weeks back), simple black-tinted Aviators, and a spattering of noticeable freckles across her cheeks. 

 

(It wasn’t much as disguises go, but it’d be enough to sit Kuznetsov down without a hint of suspicion—after that, the disguise didn’t much matter.)

 

Something strange tightened in her chest as she caught sight of Kuznetsov (dressed in no-nonsense black slacks and a slightly wrinkled white button-down, the subtle but unmistakable shape of a pistol strapped to the outside of his right ankle) approaching from down the street—she was quick to disregard it in favor of eyeing the menu with apathetic interest, giving herself a blasé but vaguely focused appearance all the while she followed his path across the mildly busy street and into the café.

 

She continued tracking his approach while the tiny golden bell attached to the glass door rang shrilly to announce the arrival of a new customer, noting the moment he saw her—she made a concerted effort to keep her heart-rate steady as he drew closer. 

 

“Ms. Baptisté,” he addressed her graciously, his sharp blue eyes glinting in the afternoon light as he moved to sit across from Natasha—she quirked a small, business-like curve of her lips in response. 

 

“Mr. Kuznetsov,” she replied in kind, consciously butchering the syllables (if only slightly) of his surname with a faint but noticeable French accent in order to maintain the guise that she did not in fact know Russian, and had only touched down there thrice on distantly related business (during one of which she'd never actually left Novosibirsk International Airport). “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

 

Kuznetsov chuckled, cerulean irises sparkling—though there was little warmth behind it as a big hairy hand came up to rub absentmindedly at the stubble dotting his jaw. 

 

“I assure you, Madame—the pleasure is all mine,” he paused for a moment, his eyes traveling up and down her form in a manner that bordered on utter lasciviousness, narrowly managing to maintain something of a harmless pretext. “Shall we talk business?”

 

“Yes,” Natasha chuckled, swiftly dropping her accent and divesting herself of the Aviators. “I would like that very much.”

 

Kuznetsov, to his credit, kept his surprise rather well hidden—the only dead give-away being his preternaturally still posture (which he amended just a second later), and the newfound but almost laughably predictable malice that sparked in his electric blue eyes. “Natalia.”

 

Natasha quirked a single brow. “Yevgeny.”

 

“The little spider returns,” he drawled, his yellowy-toothed grin widening substantially as if he’d just told a particularly funny joke. “Tell me, darling: to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

 

“My organization seems to think you would be a valuable asset.”

 

His grin, if at all possible, widened even further. “You do not agree?”

 

“No, I think they’re right.”

 

“Ah… You vouched for me, did you?” He was beginning to enjoy himself; she could see it.

 

She tilted her head, dutifully maintaining an air of clean-cut disinterest. “Not exactly.”

 

He ignored her. “I think what the Americans say is true, no? You never forget your first.”

 

(She was far too well-trained to react, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep that night, knew that she’d think about every ‘first’ with Kuznetsov, and all the ones that came after.

 

She was 8 when he taught her how to pleasure a man with her mouth and hands.

 

She made the grave mistake of not swallowing that first time, entirely unfamiliar with the newest skill she was learning as she reflexively spit the salty ejaculate out onto the floor—she’d been whipped until she’d bled that night, until the floor was stained with crimson, until she wasn’t quite sure what was real anymore whilst she dangled treacherously on the edge of consciousness.

 

She never made that same mistake again.

 

She was 9, she thinks, when she had sex for the first time. 

 

She’d bled a fair amount—Kuznetsov had simply laughed, taking a great deal of pleasure in the whimpers of pain she couldn’t hold back as he drilled her unforgivingly into the mattress.)

 

“They’re rather sentimental, aren’t they?” she mused, ignoring his not-so-subtle dig.

 

(She knew he was looking for a reaction, some kind of retaliation—any reason he could find to say ‘no’ to S.H.I.E.L.D. simply to spite Natasha, until he inevitably demanded some form of ‘reparation’ from her in order for them to obtain his full cooperation… and even then, his ‘cooperation' was by no means guaranteed.)

 

“I can certainly understand the appeal, of course,” he said, and _Here we go_ , she thought. “Remembering the very first time you wrapped your pretty red lips around my cock; you were eight, I think… or maybe the first time I slid into your taut young body, how impossibly _tight_ you were around me—you were just around nine years old, I believe, yes?”

 

She kept her expression impassive, not dignifying his clear attempt at eliciting an adverse reaction from her with a response.

 

Then he leaned deliberately closer over the table, icy blue stare attempting to burn right through her. “You bled so much that first time, whimpered so prettily for me—yes, I think I can forgive Americans their foolhardy attachments to the sentimental."

 

Natasha took a moment to gather herself then, to ensure her next words would be devoid of any telling emotion: “Then, you’d be amenable to working with my benefactors.”

 

He made a noncommittal noise. “Ah, not quite… Though, I suppose I could be,” he paused then, his gaze turning unequivocally predatory, “persuaded.”

 

At that moment, she heard a crackle in the comms—a faint male voice cursing profanely, and her stomach dropped. 

 

She’d turned her comm off; she _knew_ she had—but she was beginning to realize something: the earpieces they’d deigned to use for that particular mission, though they appeared by all accounts identical to standard S.H.I.E.L.D. equipment, could just as easily have been produced by Stark Industries, since S.H.I.E.L.D. had gone off the map months ago.

 

(It still didn’t necessarily make sense that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be low on field comms as a resource and would be therefore unable to supply a Fury-sanctioned mission on his behalf, though she supposed she should have put more weight in Tony Stark’s perpetual insistence on _not_ trusting any technology but his own. 

 

She was going to kill him.)

 

It all ran through her head in the space of less than a second, so Kuznetsov was none the wiser as she eyed him thoughtfully. “This particular organization is very… rule-conscious,” she quipped as a means of brushing off his blatant pass.

 

“Ah,” he nodded. “Shame.”

 

Her expression didn’t change; a moment later she stood deftly from her seat with a cursory hum of acknowledgement, placing her Aviators back on the bridge of her nose—at that point, she had grown 100% certain that he was going to refuse (while in the beginning she’d only been about 97.5% sure), which meant her job was done. 

 

“I will inform my handlers that that’s a no,” she concluded, then allowed a tinge of something like wry affection to seep into her next words: "Goodbye, Yevgeny."

 

(She didn’t want to think about the conversation she would need to have with the rest of the team afterwards.)

 

Then she was brushing promptly past him without bothering to linger in wait of a response, uncaring of his blatant leer as she strutted off to the double-doors and out of the café. 

 

She barely spared Steve a single glance where he sat across the street reading the paper (though he looked rather shaken, which only confirmed Natasha’s suspicions about the distinctly unfortunate comm situation)—then she was off to commandeer a car, knowing they’d agreed to meet at the rendezvous point (one of Natasha and Clint’s old safe houses near Orense) no later than 16:00. 

 

(For a moment, she’ll admit she debated just taking off—she had a safe house fairly nearby that Clint had never known about, and it’d be almost painfully easy to disappear into the vast network of last-ditch security measures and clever fox-holes she’d set up all across the continent; but at the same time, she knew she wouldn’t.

 

She hadn’t been that person, the one who ran at the first sign of trouble, for a very long time. 

 

 _Dammit_ , she was getting soft.)

 

_Still_ , she thought as she walked briskly down the road. _This is going to be a very uncomfortable team meeting_.

 

— —


	2. the expediency of caring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all talk about what went down. 
> 
> Steve's pissed, Wanda's sad, and Natasha tries to fix it (even though she has no idea where to begin).

She takes what she’d like to call the ‘scenic route,’ so she arrives at the safe house with only a minute to spare—immediately, she can see that everyone else has already arrived from the scuffed footprints in the dirt (Tony and Sam, one of whom had likely given Clint a lift) and motorcycle tire tracks (Steve and Wanda) beside them.

 

Soundlessly, she mounts the wooden porch, hesitating imperceptibly for a brief moment before the white-painted front door—then, heaving a soft sigh, she lets herself in.

 

It's quiet, which is unusual—but not unexpected, considering what they’d all just unintentionally heard over the comms.

 

She can hear low voices coming from the kitchen, and as she pads into the space (not bothering to muffle her footfalls), her suspicions are confirmed: there they are, sitting around the rectangular wooden dining table, all five of them, solemn looks upon each of their faces.

 

(If at all possible, the silence blanketing them seems to magnify as she enters.) 

 

“You’re all rather quiet,” she remarks flippantly, refusing to display the uncertainty she feels whilst she sinks deftly into an empty seat at the table. 

 

(She takes note of Clint’s stony-faced expression, knows he’ll be cornering her later on for a turbulent one-on-one—for now, though, there’s not much to be done about it.)

 

Steve looks as if he's barely managing to keep himself in check, his jaw clenched, steely blue eyes flashing almost dangerously. (It’s an interesting contrast to his star-spangled stealth suit, Natasha thinks.) “You lied to us.”

 

Natasha’s lips twitch. “I think that’s overstating things.” Steve’s eye twitches at her subtle reference to their missions spent in search for the Winter Soldier—for Bucky. "I simply withheld the more… unsavory details.”

 

Steve’s expression turns stormy and he opens his mouth to argue, but Tony beats him to it, the billionaire leaning determinedly over the table to fix Natasha with an indignant stare: “Personally, I think you’re _under_ stating things,” he quips, his bottom lip downturned to form a discontented pout. 

 

“How’s that?”

 

“Nat, he—" Steve stops himself, clearly struggling for the words. “He _hurt_ you.” 

 

Natasha tilts her head, hating the stab of _something_ she feels in her gut as she does. “It was a long time ago.”

 

Tony’s brows are stitched together, his brown irises unusually solemn as he eyes her. “Why’d you agree to the mission in the first place, Red?”

 

“Because Fury ordered it,” she replies with a shrug. “And I trust his judgement.”

 

(Wanda looks utterly _broken_ , Natasha can see out of her periphery—she’s not quite sure what it’s supposed to mean. 

 

Maybe she’s just horrified, disgusted—that would make sense, Natasha thinks, even if it physically pains her to speculate.)

 

There’s silence for a long and palpably charged moment. 

 

“Did he know?” Steve asks then, his voice quiet but wrought with poorly-restrained anger.

 

Natasha quirks a brow. “About Yevgeny?”

 

Steve nods sharply.

 

(She debates lying, but decides in the end it isn’t worth it.)

 

“Yes,” Natasha admits, watching with curious interest as Steve and Tony inhale sharply at that. 

 

“I’m gonna _kill_ that eyepatch-wearing f—"

 

“I wouldn’t recommend it, Stark,” she interjects in a bemused tone. “Death doesn’t seem to be all that permanent where Nick is concerned.”

 

She sees Sam quirk his lips in the ghost of a smirk at that—but, it’s empty. Forced, almost.

 

(She’s rather confused by it all, if she’s being perfectly honest. 

 

She thought they’d be sickened by Yevgeny’s words, thought they might avoid her gaze for the next couple of days, thought they’d be uncomfortable, and understandably so… but _this_ … this is… perplexing. 

 

They’re… angry, though she doesn’t quite understand why. 

 

Well, logically, it seems to be because they _care_ , because they love her and therefore despise the man who fucked and beat her into existence, into the cold-blooded killer she’s become. 

 

But something about it doesn’t quite connect, doesn’t quite feel accurate or remotely _real_ in her admittedly damaged brain. 

 

She expected this from Clint, of course—because as bewildered as she is by it all, she’s come to accept that she means something to him, even if she maintains that he’s a fool for valuing her life and happiness to the degree that he does. 

 

But, Steve? Tony? _Sam?_

 

… _Wanda?_

 

It’s strange; it’s alarming; most of all, it’s difficult for Natasha to conceptualize. 

 

She rarely ever has that problem.)

 

Steve stands abruptly then, his chair scraping harshly against the wooden floor as he does. 

 

“How can you be so—so _calm_ about this?” he demands, his voice raised, self-righteousness rolling off of him in waves as he crosses trembling arms against his chest, his entire body pulled taut like a bowstring.

 

Natasha furrows a brow. “You knew my past was bloody, Steve.” Then she turns to address the rest of them, her gaze calculating and detached. "You _all_ knew that. And, I’m sorry you had to hear it firsthand—I tried to turn my comm off, but I guess the Stark Industries' device functions a little differently than S.H.I.E.L.D.’s.” She flicks her stare over to Tony, who at least has the decency to look somewhat rueful. “So, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

 

Steve looks like he wants to punch something. “Natasha, that’s—" he growls, struggling to get himself under control as he abruptly uncrosses his arms, clenching his fists erratically at his side. “That’s not the problem. You don’t need to apologize for… for _him_.”

 

“Then, what?”

 

“He’s angry ‘cause we _care_ , Tash,” comes Clint’s hoarse voice in the well-lit space, his blue eyes sad and defeated. “He’s angry ‘cause we wish we could’ve protected you back then.”

 

That hits Natasha like a brick wall even as she works to keep her expression unfailingly neutral, especially so as Steve’s infuriated expression falls to be swiftly replaced instead by a wholly _ruined_ look on devastated features.

 

Natasha sighs. “I’m sorry it upsets you,” she concedes, her tone even but pointedly sincere as she flicks her gaze methodically around the table. “But, it’s over now, okay?” She pauses then, her eyes finding Steve’s again across the tabletop. “We have what we have when we have it.”

 

There’s silence after that, but it’s significantly less wrought with palpable discord—instead it’s peaceful, almost; or rather, there’s a certain finality to it, and Natasha knows that they’re all going to be okay. 

 

— —

 

Sam finds her later, sitting on wooden banister constructed atop the porch (with a gun tucked into her jeans and multiple knives in various places on her person, because she’s not a _moron_ ), gazing out serenely towards the pinkish horizon streaked liberally with fiery reds and oranges. 

 

She hears him coming and doesn’t move, knows there’s a certain closure he (and Steve, and Tony, and Clint, and _Wanda_ ) needs after Yevgeny’s biting words, knows that she’s the only one who can provide such a thing (even if she’s unfamiliar as all hell with comfort, and closure, and really any even remotely healthy mechanism for coping with the stuff like this, the stuff that hurts, the stuff that _gets_ to you like nothing else does).

 

“It’s pretty, huh?” he muses, coming to lean both forearms on the wooden railing next to her.

 

She nods, her gaze still fixed upon the setting sun. “It is.” She halts for a brief second, eyes turning thoughtful. “Are you upset?”

 

Sam sighs. “Natasha, I don’t think ‘upset’ is the right word for how I’m feeling right now.”

 

“Then, what is?” she questions, turning her head deliberately to meet his earnest brown eyes, allowing a shred of genuine curiosity to show on her expression.

 

“Well,” Sam huffs out a defeated breath. “First of all, I want to grab my wings, snatch Kuznetsov off the streets of Galicia, and drop him somewhere obscure, where no one will ever find him and he’ll die a long, slow, _painful_ death. Maybe the middle of the North Pole—he’s probably on Santa’s naughty list, anyhow.” Natasha chuckles at that, and Sam’s lips twitch upwards for a moment. “And, then… well, and then I wanna give you a hug, hold you tight, let you know no one’s ever gonna hurt you like that again, not when you have me and Steve and Wanda and everyone else. I don’t know that there’s a word for it, honestly.” 

 

She opens her mouth to counter that, but he stops her with a single, knowing look—one that says _“I’m not finished yet.”_

 

“And, yeah, I don’t even know if ex-KGB ex-assassins even _do_ soft and cuddly things like hugs—that’s okay; and believe me, I know you don’t need my protection,” he adds with a smile, and Natasha feels warmth building in her chest. “I just want you to know you have it anyways. No matter what. Okay?”

 

If Natasha wasn't so emotionally detached, she might have cried—but still, a genuine smile overtakes her features in response, and she can feel the crushing weight upon her shoulders lightening just the tiniest bit; for her, that's more than enough. 

 

“Okay,” she says back, then leans to plant a warm kiss upon his cheek. 

 

“Aw, shucks, girl,” he coos playfully when she pulls away, fanning himself with both hands. “You’re gonna make me blush.”

 

(And if he has tears shining in his eyes when she grins widely at him and he grins even more widely back, neither of them say anything about it.)

 

— —

 

Later that night, she’s with Wanda, straddling the young witch’s lap and planting firm kisses against full red lips—but she knows what’s coming, knows Wanda wants to talk, knows she shouldn’t bother deflecting any longer; a second later, she’s deliberately tapering off the delicate warmth of affectionate kisses, then wrapping her arms loosely around the younger girl’s neck as she leans slightly back, waiting patiently for Wanda to speak. 

 

“You read me so well,” Wanda says with a self-deprecating shake of her head, voice husky, her Sokovian accent slipping ever-so-subtly back into her words.

 

Natasha just hums, absentmindedly stroking her fingers through Wanda’s silky auburn-dyed locks of hair—still, she’s waiting; what’s more, Wanda knows it, too.

 

Wanda sighs, anxiously biting her own kiss-swollen lip. “Why did you not tell me, Natasha?”

 

“Do you feel better now that you know?”

 

“You know that I don't.”

 

Natasha nods—then forcibly allows a sliver of vulnerability to show on her face; she wants to be _honest_ here, she finds—she doesn’t want to hide. “I didn’t want you to hear about those things.”

 

“Why not?” Wanda’s brow furrows. “They are a part of you.”

 

Natasha shrugs. “They’re ugly.” 

 

“And you think that they make _you_ ‘ugly’?"

 

Natasha debates for a moment before purposefully allowing a slight flush to tinge her cheeks (a rare show of humanity on her part). “Something like that.”

 

“They do not,” Wanda says firmly. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

 

(Natasha has heard those words before in countless permutations, and at this point, they’ve become rather meaningless falling upon her ears…

 

But something about this, about the way Wanda’s saying it—it doesn’t _feel_ meaningless. Not anymore.)

 

“You’re still young, little witch.”

 

Wanda lets out another sigh. “Don’t.” 

 

Natasha doesn’t offer up an apology, but instead allows her silence to speak for her—and if the gentle acceptance in Wanda’s ocean-blue eyes is anything to go by, she understands what Natasha’s trying to communicate. 

 

It’s quiet for a while then, Natasha skillfully combing her fingers through Wanda’s hair, Wanda tracing absentminded patterns on the bare skin of Natasha’s thighs where they sit intertwined upon the slightly creaky queen-sized mattress in the cozy safe house.

 

After a moment, Wanda breaks the silence, her determined eyes catching Natasha’s again. “I want to kill that man,” she says, her voice low and serious. “I want to kill him and everyone who has ever harmed you.”

 

Natasha doesn’t quite know how to respond to that verbally, doesn’t quite know what to do with the bone-deep affection gathering beneath her skin propelled by an explicable momentum she’d be a damned fool to bother fighting—but she tries to let it just _be_ within her, tries in the best way she knows how, with soft kisses and unrelenting worship and soothing reassurances in the dead of the night as Wanda’s soft pleasure-filled moans blanket her in a familiar sort of warmth, as the Sokovian girl writhes against the sheets beneath her, as her heart feels close to bursting when Wanda looks up at her with those wide vulnerable blue eyes and she can’t help but melt into their cerulean depths.

 

So she’s still confused, still more than a little bit lost, but when she wakes in the morning to warm puffs of air against the nape of her neck and a willowy pale arm secured around her waist, the rest of it doesn’t matter—not the nightmares that plagued her throughout the night, not the uncertainty swirling in her chest amidst the overwhelming _care_ she feels for Wanda Maximoff, not anything. 

 

“We have what we have when we have it,” is what she’d told Steve; what’s more, she’d meant it (she still does)—and lying there next to the person with whom she’s building the next chapters of her story, the person who’s making those chapters of her life the softest and best she’s ever known, the person who unconditionally cares for reasons Natasha is loathe to try and understand, she knows she’s been given a hell of a lot more than she ever deserved… but she has it now, and that’s what matters; she has it now, and she’s not going to let it go.

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked!:) would love to know your thoughts<3

**Author's Note:**

> (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/))


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